The Fresh Kids...

It was the 80's, we were kids, and we were breakdancing in the middle east.



I know I'm going to hear about this from a few of my friends, but I've recently gotten in touch with people from my days in Jordan so I figured it would be nice to share this.

My parents had this picture on their mantle. I was in a bit of a rush and used my digital camera to capture it rather than scan it, hence the poor quality.

Labels...

I decided to make use of the label feature on posts. I turned out to be a tedious process since I had to go through all the posts since I started the site. You can now see the post categories in the side bar. I did it mainly for my sake so I can find stuff a little easier.

One tough bit is finding broken links in the older posts. I did a little searching for some online link checkers. I tried a couple sites, but the reporting wasn't that great and I had to dig through my posts anyways. There probably are some broken links still...

Moth Sailing

I'm starting to seriously consider buying a single-handed dinghy like a Laser or Finn. So I went on YouTube to check out some videos there about these boats when I came across this and this.

They look like they're flying on the water ! It looks like a ton of fun too. Probably not cheap either...

There's lots on YouTube about these boats, but here's one good one that seems to be a marketing video of sorts.

A used Laser is probably the route I'll go with. There's lots of boats around and a bunch of regattas in areas close by. I can load one of them on the top of my car too...probably best to put in a roof rack though. Buying one this year is probably out of the question, I'll see what my finances are like next spring. In the meantime, I'll be keeping an eye open for good deals...

J105 Sailing

I recently managed to get some sailing in on the weekend with Rob and Sandy on their J105 boat for the Port Credit Yacht Club regatta this past weekend. Manuel, the webmaster for the J105 Fleet 4 managed to put the word out for me and Sandy got a hold of Friday.

It was great to be out there on the water again. The J105 boat itself is pretty big compared to the Kirby25s that I started on. It also uses a small jib compared to the 150% genoa usually on Kirbys as well as an asymmetrical spinnaker. The setup makes tacking and jibing fairly simple. You don't have to jibe the spinnaker pole on downwind jibes and it's easier to manage the small jib on upwind tacks. Nevertheless, like any boat, it takes a bit of skill to sail fast and beat the fleet consistently. Our boat handling wasn't much of an issue, rather our trimming and courses put us in the middle to rear of the pack.

I got confused about sail trim rules during some of the discussions on the boat. Being out of practice and trying to recollect what I'd learnt the previous 3 years, I got mixed up as to what kind of sail shape you need for different wind speeds and water conditions. In any case, I found some resourceful links after I got home.

The performance sailing articles on Sailing San Francisco site is a good resource: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
The Vega sailing manual is a good one as well.

I learned a few new things about sailing a boat over the weekend and hopefully I can put them to good use fairly soon.

In any case, here are some pics from the weekend:

















Incidentally, the ontario crew bank is a good place to sign up if you're looking to get on a boat somewhere or if you have a boat and are looking for crew.

Flickr Photos

I recently logged in to Yahoo Photos to add a picture and I got a message that it'll be shut down. As a result I had the option of transferrring my pictures to four different sites but I settled for Flickr because I thought it was the best.

Here's a link to my photo sets.

I still have to organize my pictures into a proper album. Now that I have a proper computer desk to sit at, it makes it easier to get back to sorting and editing the photos.

Old Class Picture

Thanks to the facebook phenomenon, I've had a few old classmates from Jordan get a hold of me. It's a bit surreal to think about, it seems like a lifetime ago that I was living in Amman and going to school with them. It might be nice to travel back there again and see how the place has changed over the last 15 years or so.

My parents have some old photos from those days...here's a class picture from Abdul Hamid Sharaf in Amman:



I did a little search online and found a wikipedia entry for the school. It seems a disgruntled student managed to add a few vulgar lines at the end of the writeup.